Amelie Schreck and Gili Ron are collaborating on a project funded by the SRF IRIS seed funding, titled “Towards Human-Robot Co-Agency: AI and Feminist Technoscience Perspectives on Diversity, Demography, and Democracy in Human-Robot Collaboration in Architecture.” At the intersection of architectural informatics and social sciences, this project addresses productivity and sustainability challenges in the construction industry with an innovative approach to human-robot collaboration (HRC) that combines intuitive communication, AI, and user feedback. The aim is to attract a more diverse workforce and enhance creativity, agency, and trust by making industrial robots better collaborators with humans. The project incorporates feminist technoscience perspectives and focuses on equitable development and decision-making, engaging various stakeholders to ensure fair and inclusive adoption of HRC methods in architecture. Below, Amelie Schreck (A) and Gili Ron (G) answer multiple questions about their research and themselves:
How did you get into your research?
A: For my master's thesis, I focused on care robots and explored how technical developments respond to societal challenges in elderly care. I reconstructed the technological genesis process of a care robot, spoke with caregivers and technical developers, and found that, for various reasons, the technical development does not meet the care requirements.
G: For my master’s thesis, I worked with an industrial robot to fabricate and assemble topologically interlocked large bricks made of sand and sulfur composite ("waterless concrete").
Where does your research interest come from?
A: I want to understand the background of processes and examine phenomena as we do in social sciences, considering many different influencing factors.
G: My passion for design research began during my Bachelor of Architecture at Tel Aviv University, where I explored various fabrication tools and processes, including digital design and fabrication. This interest deepened during the Emergent Technologies and Design master's program at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA School) in London, where I combined traditional architecture with robotic fabrication. This experience sparked a strong interest in human-robot collaboration.
Were there any people, books, or artists who inspired you?
G: The writings of Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour about kinship and future relations between humans, nature, and machines; Lucy Suchman and Shaoen Bardzell, who combine feminist critique with human-machine/human-robot interaction; the artworks of STELARC, Lucy McRae, and Anna Uddenberg concerning cyborgs and human-machine combinations.
What is unique about your research?
We integrate concepts from social sciences (understanding social behavior, interpreting, and explaining its course and effects) with digital design and robotic fabrication for architecture. We are interested in inefficient processes or the use of novel machines to create new architecture and how industry workers will use these processes and machines. We focus on the satisfaction, comfort, and power relations between humans and machines. Our research is influenced by feminist technoscience critique, a subset of Science and Technology Studies (STS).
How do you explain your research to laypeople?
We study how people and robots can build houses and buildings together. The goal is to make robots truly helpful in making work easier and more enjoyable for people. To do this, we invite builders, designers, and researchers to try working with robots and share their thoughts about what works well and what could be better. Then, we take their suggestions to improve how robots and people team up. It’s like designing a perfect partnership between people and robots.
How does your collaboration work?
Gili researches and studies examples of HRC and develops and tests new methods at the robotics lab with her cobot (and other tools). Amelie researches the participation of future users and their expectations and assessments of the HRC. We design experiments together, invite industry partners and researchers to our lab, and test it with our robotic arm (her name is Lara). We have WebEx and real-life meetings and are currently writing a paper together.
How do you conduct your research?
We read books and articles to gain a theoretical background and update ourselves on current research. Gili also watches online tutorials and reads manuals to use the technical tools and software crucial to our study. Then, she simulates the processes and tests them in real life. It is a combination of books, software, and hardware.
Is there a point at which your research ends?
Project AP30 ended with the SRF IRIS seed funding at the end of November 2024. However, the research on HRC informed by machine learning and reinforcement learning will continue. Generally, we want to help bridge the gap between academic research and real-life HRC: an industry adoption. We research how collaborative fabrication processes can be better adapted to user needs.
What can we learn from your research?
Human factors and human feedback are crucial to technology design and research.
Robots are all over the world thanks to AI. Do you think there will one day be robots controlled by AI?
From our research perspective, this is more vision than reality. Robots informed by AI are part of our research ambitions. This and more: we want to understand how people respond to robots informed by AI – are they better collaborators than robots that are not?
When could robots be self-aware?
Our robots know their surroundings through visuals, depth sensing, and force/torque sensors. Self-awareness is a long way to go…
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: In a job where I can continue dealing with topics about shaping the future. I want to work in a team of inquisitive and kind people wherever possible.
G: I want to mother robots. I am interested in designing and programming robots to respond more humanely while overseeing and guiding their development to ensure they operate safely and effectively.
Simone Brandes
Dipl.-Kulturwis.Public Engagement Coordinator IRIS